A home networking is a technique capable of remote-controlling major digital devices such as electric appliances including a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a microwave oven, a television set and the like through a wire or a wireless network, e.g., wire/wireless Internet, and sharing contents between the digital devices. Such a home networking is regarded as a core element of a market for next generation digital devices.
Once the home network is furnished, the digital devices can be desirably controlled by a mobile terminal or an indicator such as a remote control and the like inside or outside a house. Moreover, the digital devices of the home network enable a connection of a communication network such as Internet and the like, a transmission of motion pictures and a transmission/reception of e-mails inside/outside the house, so that a real cyber home can be created.
The home network technique having such advantages can be divided into a home server, a development and a standardization of a middleware for driving a home server and a development and a standardization of a transmission technique between digital devices. Among them, the most important element is the middleware that is a communication protocol standard for operating each of the digital devices based on a home server.
A current international standard framework of a home network is largely divided into “HAVi” (Home Audio Video interoperability) developed by household appliances enterprises such as Sony, Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi and the like; “UPnP” (Universal Plug and Play) developed by computer enterprises such as Microsoft, Intel and the like; and Sun Microsystem's “Jini” (Java Intelligent Network Infrastructure), and they severely compete with each other to take the initiative for standardization.
Accordingly, there has been increased the importance of the remote control apparatus having a communication protocol standard that is a middleware, such as a home server of a home networking, for remote-controlling a plurality of digital devices.
Recently, there has been suggested an integrated control system for controlling digital devices included in the home network by using an RFID tag. However, such an integrated control system is cost-inefficient because the electric appliances are recognized and controlled by using the RFID tag.
Although there is being developed a technique enabling a remote indicator to recognize information of digital devices included in the home network with the use of tags attached to the corresponding appliances, it has a high recognition error rate due to the circumstances such as a distance, lighting and the like.